Terminal alkenes that do not contain activating substituents such as —O-alkyl, aryl (such as phenyl in styrene), cyano, carboxylic ester, or amide near the double bond are difficult to polymerize. These unactivated terminal alkenes are ordinarily stable indefinitely at room temperature in air. Much effort has been directed at improving the polymerization of unactivated terminal alkenes, such as the use of coordinatively unsaturated transition metal catalysts (McKnight and Waymouth 1998; Gibson and Spitzmesser 2003), the use of high pressure and temperature, and in some cases low-temperature cationic polymerization (Cheradame 1984; Sangalov et al. 2001). However, these methods are difficult to carry out and often produce low molecular weight polymers (Moad and Solomon 1995).
An improved method of polymerizing unactivated alkenes is needed.